Family Duty Honour Not only Tully words
by Lyall44
Summary: Ned visits Rickon, Brandon and Lyanna for the first time in a while.


He cannot tell if the goose bumps that have raised over his body are from the chill of the room or from something else. The several layers of fur do not seem to be holding the heat in as they had once done.

But the cold will not stop him. It had been too long since he had been here to see them. He would do well not to forget what they had given up for him. Brandon and Rickon the most. They had sacrificed their lives for the sake of Lyanna.

The Tully words may be "Family. Duty. Honour", but Eddard ever felt that Brandon and his father had lived up to these words in their final journey to Kings Landing.

He suppressed another shiver as he reached the end of darkened basement and came to a holt in front of them. They had barely changed, age had not reached them down in the dank underground.

Wind had not withered them, like it had Lord Starks face. He felt a thousand years old stood in front of them, painfully reminded of how long it had been since he had been to visit them.

His brother, the rightful heir, his stone carving carrying the arrogance that he breathed in life. He had everything Ned did not. The easy ability to rule and make decisions without feeling the weight of them.

"It should have been me…" He whispered dropping his eyes from the stony gaze of his brother. "I should have gone to Kings Landing with father like he had suggesting, and y-you should have married Catelyn, and become lord of Winterfell."

Eddard dropped to his knees pressing his head to Brandon Starks' cold feet holding back the pain of a century. He wished in that moment that their places were reversed. Catelyn deserved a man like Brandon, not the second choice because of default.

He loved her with all of his heart, but she deserved a man that did not keep his greatest secret from her.

After a moment he raised his head again to meet his fathers gaze, who's strong and sturdy statue seemed to loom above him, as large and intimidating in stone as he was in life.

"F-father. I pray for your strength every day, I hope to hold the North strong like you once did. I do not wish to fail you."

Doubt at his abilities gnawed away at his bones and mind each night, making it harder to rise in the morning and be the leader he was expected to be. Catelyn was his crutch and the exhaustion of 10 years of leading was beginning to take its toll on him.

His father had been a great man, that most people held in great esteem, and Ned feared that he would never been seen as that. His shoulders ached from the weight of it all.

If two great men such as his father and brother could die for such a thing, then what would become of Eddard?

"You told Brandon he would be great, but what of I father? What of I?"

And finally he turned to his sister. The stone carver had captured her beauty, but stone could not hold in the wildness that had hummed in the air around her. Her will to live and desire for adventure could never be pinned down in such a cold dark place.

He saw her every day in Jon and Arya. They were both Starks to the bone.

"Arya, my second daughter. She is still young, but so much like you. I fear I will not be able to tame her into a lady like her sister Sansa. She has the north in her and holds your dear beauty."

Arya, just yesterday had declared that she was going to join the knights and fight in a tourney. Ned did not have the heart to tell her that she would not be permitted to do so. Jon had smiled and carved out a wooden stick for her to fight with. He knew if Lyanna were there she would have decked the girl out in armour and had her jousting within the hour.

"I wish you could meet him Lyanna…" Ned started, "Robb loves him like a brother a-as I p-promised… He has grown into a fine young man, greater than I. I-I am so proud of him and I know you would be too." He bowed his head thinking of the black haired boy that ran around with his children and called him father.

And he thought of the ice in Catelyn's eyes every time Jon's name was mentioned or she saw him in the yard playing with her children. It pained him so to see her treat her own kin as such, but she could not know the truth. He had promised.

Lyanna had known the danger as much as he did, but still it was an ever growing struggle to keep such a burden from his family and the ones he loved. His only consolidation was the Godswood. But he no longer found the answers there.

The Godswood became silent the day they decided to take his father and brother from him, and they had not uttered a word in consolidation when Lyanna had so unrightfully slipped from the world.

But still he whispered his secret into their leaves in the hope that some God, somewhere would be listening and understand, and perhaps help share the load.


End file.
